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A LITTLE 
JOURNEY TO 

BUFFALO 

BY 
ELEERT HVEBHRL 





THE ROY^ROFTER^ 

EFI5T ni/RORRERIE ^:Ol/hTy- n.Y 



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A Little Journey to 

BUFFALO 



By 

ELBERT HUBBARD 




Done into print by The Roycrofters, at their 
Shop, which is situate in the Village of East 
Aurora, New York State. February, MCMXIV 



MiHiiiiMiiiiiMimiiihtliiiiiiii 






Copyright 1914 

By 
Elbert Hubbard 



')C1.A371294 
1M) / 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO 

BUFFALO 



By 



^ iM 



ELBERT HUBBARD 

AM as well qualified to write 
about Buffalo as most any one 
you know. 

My parents were bom in Buf- 
falo. They were married in 
Buffalo. They moved to Illinois 
three months before I was born, 
otherwise — but what 's the use ! 
C I returned to Buffalo in 
Eighteen Hundred Seventy- 
three, when I was seventeen 
years of age. At that time Buf- 
falo had two horse-car lines. 
One line ran from the dock at the foot of Main 
Street to Cold Spring. The other line ran from 
Main Street out Niagara to Black Rock. 
Buffalo is four hundred twenty-three miles 
from New York City, and four hundred ninety- 
eight miles from Boston. It used to be four 
hundred ninety -nine miles, but I notice that 
the conductors now pull only four hundred 
ninety-eight miles. It looks as if we were get- 

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A LITTLE JOURNEY TO BUFFALO 

ting nearer to Boston ; I really believe we are. 
C In the year Eighteen Hundred Twenty, the 
population of Buffalo was two thousand. 
In Eighteen Hundred Seventy-three, when I 
landed there and carried my carpetbag out 
to Cold Spring looking for my uncle, walking 
so as to save carfare, the population was two 
hundred thousand . CL In Nineteen Hundred the 
population was three hundred fifty thousand. 
In Nineteen Hundred Ten it was four hundred 
twenty -five thousand. Now it is five hundred 
thousand. COf course, I do not claim that my 
advent into Buffalo increased the population 
in the rapid way that I have enumerated. How- 
ever, I can truthfully lay claim to having 
increased the wealth of Buffalo not a little &^ 
This does not mean that I have attached 
myself permanently to any large rolls of cur- 
rency. Nevertheless I can say in all sincerity 
that Buffalo has been good to me. 



IN Eighteen Hundred Seventy-five I was 
working in a soap-factory on Seneca Street, 
in the district known as " The Hydraulics.'* 
This soap-factory was an old, one-story, brick 
4 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO BUFFALO 

engine-house. The original factory had burned, 
leaving only this dingy engine-house. Three 
men and four boys were employed. I was one 
of the boys. 

In the course of two or three years I had an 
interest in the business. A wooden structure 
was built in front of the little brick building, 
and the next year the lot adjoining was 
purchased &^ ^^ 

I went out on the road, and sold all the soap 
that this factory could grind out. 
The institution grew slowly, but surely. 
In the year Eighteen Hundred Eighty -nine I 
evolved an idea, and that was the selling of 
the product direct from factory to family ^^ 
We burned our bridges and put up an assort- 
ment of household soaps, perfumes, toilet- 
soaps and toilet requisites, and then gave in 
addition a premium, selling the whole outfit 
for ten dollars. It was quite some idea. 
C How big it was I did n't know at the time, 
and nobody knows yet. Millions have been 
made, and millions more will be made out of 
that little think-germ. 

Having other interests and ambitions I sold 

5 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO BUFFALO 

out my share of the soap-factory and was 
paid what I then considered, and my friends 
considered, a very generous price. Since then, 
of course, they say I was fluffy in the alfalfa ^«» 
The concern grew, evolved, expanded — after 
I got out of it. And some of the boys I hired 
grew with it. 

They grew as the business grew, and today 
this factory is the biggest and best of its kind 
in the United States — perhaps in the world ^^^ 



I MADE a little purchase of real estate at the 
"village of East Aurora, eighteen miles from 
Buffalo, in the year Eighteen Hundred Eighty - 
three. For nine years I made a little journey 
every day to Buffalo and back. I enjoyed the 
journey both ways. 

I still live at East Aurora, where I am a 
farmer with a literary attachment. I raise 
Durocs and write Poetry. 
The fact that Buffalo is a trifle jealous of East 
Aurora does not, I hope, prejudice me from 
taking a fair and judicial view of Buffalo. 
In fact, I think I know more about the city 
than most people do who live in Buffalo. 
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A T.ITTLE TOURNEY TO BUFFALO 

I have the perspective. And inasmuch as my 
work takes me all over the world, I am more 
or less familiar with every city in the United 
States, and I am also at home in the Capitals 
of Europe. 

I have a point of comparison that few enjoy. 
I know the banks, the factories, the schools, 
the stores, the parks, and I also know most of 
the big men of Buffalo. 



Mo city in the United States has grown so 
steadily, so surely, so solidly, as Buffalo 
has ^o» 5^ 

Buffalo is the second city in size in the Empire 
State and it is the seventh city in size in the 
United States of America. 
It probably will be fifth in size in a very few 
years &^ ^^ 

Buffalo has a greater assortment and diversity 
of manufacturing interests than any other 
city in America. 

Many of our cities are built up by what are 
called '* one-man institutions." 
One city will focus on agricultural implements, 
another on automobiles, a third on furniture, 

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A LITTLE JOURNEY TO BUFFALO 

a fourth on locomotives, a fifth on railroad- 
cars, a sixth on iron and steel, another on 
soap, another on lumber, another on oil- 
refineries ; but Buffalo produces each and all 
of these staples enumerated. 
Here business is balanced. 
No possible slump that can occur will hit all 
of these diversified interests at one time — at 
least they never have. 

If things are dull in the oil-refinery they are 
booming in lumber ; if they are dull in lumber, 
soap is still in demand. The things manu- 
factured in Buffalo go the round world over ^€^ 
''All good roads lead to Buffalo.'' Buffalo has 
the two best railroads in the United States, 
perhaps in the world. Never mind what they 
are. If you do not know already, you would n't 
believe it anyway. In all, Buffalo has fourteen 
railroads, not to mention the interurbans &^ 
Then there is the lake traffic. Buffalo was an 
important city before the railroads arrived — 
this on account of the famous Erie Canal and 
Lake Erie. 

Lake Erie was then the great highway to the 
West, and it is yet, only we have added the 
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A LITTLE JOURNEY TO BUFFALO 

Northwest, which is bigger than the West, 
because it includes Western Canada, and 
Canada is practically an empire that has been 
added to the world of wealth since day before 
yesterday &^ &^ 

BUFFALO is the third principal grain and 
flour market in the world. It is the most 
extensive livestock market East of Chicago. 
More horses are sold at East Buffalo every year 
than are handled at any other place in the 
round world. 

The climate of Buffalo makes for health and 
long life. Beside climate, Buffalo has weather. 
Both are strong factors in making strong men. 
(I Into the population of Buffalo, Fate poured 
a German aggregation that has added vastly 
to the well-being of the city. 
These Germans got jobs, which is just as 
beautiful as to accept situations. 
They bought real estate and became home- 
owners, and the man who owns a home has 
given bonds to society for good behavior &^ 
The Germans have made the savings-banks 
of Buffalo bulge. 

9 



A LITTLE TOURNEY TO BUFFALO 

In Nineteen Hundred a third of the population 
of Buffalo was of German parentage. And when 
Chauncey M. Depew, the silver-tongued, once 
made a speech at Buffalo and in ringing 
accents asked, " Who was it that built up 
this great and prosperous city of Buffalo ! " 
a voice shouted back, '' Us Germans ! " And 
the man was right. The German may move at 
a rather slow pace — perhaps they do not 
exceed the speed-limit — but they certainly 
do arrive. 

KUFFALO is on the eve of a great real- 
estate boom. The splendid State Roads — 
brick, asphalt, concrete, macadam — running 
out of Buffalo in every direction are bringing 
into the market some very choice real estate. 
Automobiles and good roads annihilate space 
and cancel distance. 

Buffalo is on an undulating plain, gradually 
rising as you leave the city, in every direction. 
fl As you pass out of Buffalo to the East 
is Depew, where are immense car-shops and 
various manufactories of iron specialties. 
The pavements are superb, the street-car 
10 



A LITTLE TOURN EY TO B UFFALO 

lines are all one can ask for, and just a few 
miles down toward the lake lies the great, 
active, busy city of Buffalo, with her wonder- 
ful diversified interests, her schools, her col- 
leges, her factories, her banks, her libraries, 
her parks, and all that makes for health, 
wealth and civilization. 

He who invests in real estate in the Depew 
District will not go astray. 
James J. Hill was bom within a hundred 
miles of Buffalo. He is a product of Buffalo 
weather. When he left home, he boarded a 
steamboat at the foot of Main Street, going 
on as fireman and working his way to Chicago. 
<L Mr. Hill says, ** Buy land anywhere, and 
buy quick." If he had been from Boston he 
would have said '* quickly '' — but we under- 
stand him. What he meant was that land is 
limited, but population, seemingly, is with- 
out limit. 

Man is a land animal — he can not live away 
from land, successfully. You can stay up in 
an aeroplane only a very short time, and 
sometimes you return to mother earth sooner 
than you had calculated. 

11 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO BUFFALO 

We belong on the ground. Men are safe, sane, 
sensible, only when they are on the earth &€» 
People who work in the city should live in the 
country, or at least in the suburbs. 
The country is the place to sleep, to dream, 
to rest. Here we dig in the garden and thereby 
we keep our health. 

I certainly did drop a big bunch of wealth 
by forsaking Buffalo for East Aurora, but any- 
way I have kept close to the ground, and my 
advice to any one who wishes to do good work, 
who wants to last, and not be a care to his 
neighbor, to the State, or a tax to society — 
my advice to this man is, '* Buy real estate 
in the vicinity of Buffalo." I would say, *'Buy 
real estate in the city of Buffalo, '* were it not 
for the fact that the advice seems a trifle gratu- 
itous, when the fact is that real estate in Buffalo 
is so tremendously valuable that plain, every- 
day citizens who are not hit hard by the new 
income-tax law can't afford to purchase 
Buffalo dirt. 

But out just a little way we can all come in &^ 
To be a real-estate owner makes a man a 
better citizen ; it adds to his efflciency, to his 
12 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO BUFFALO 

happiness, and in turn he adds to the well- 
being of the world. 



BUFFALO can never go back. I expect to 
* see Buffalo a city of a million people, and 
she will be the Electric City. 
Charles F. Steinmetz, the greatest electrical 
prophet in the world, and the last word in 
electricity, says that there certainly will come 
a time when Buffalo will use seventy-five per 
cent of the water-power available from 
Niagara Falls. And why not ? 
Shall the Falls be kept forever for the edifica- 
tion of bridal couples ? 

No ! The day is at hand when to utilize the 
Falls for the benefit of humanity will be 
regarded as a more wonderful thing than 
simply the succumbing of the fluid to the law 
of gravitation. 

" What is to hinder it? " said a woman as she 
saw^ the water falling. 

So say I ; but to utilize this wonderful gift of 
Nature for heat and light and power, to turn 
the countless wheels of trade, making men 
free from the toil and moil of pitiless labor — 

13 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO BUFFALO 

this is the final destiny of Niagara Falls. 
<L American engineers are going to give the 
wonderful Niagara Falls to the people, and 
principally to the people in the vicinity of 
Buffalo ^i>» 5€^ 

Then indeed will we see a city such as the 
world has never before seen : a city of surpassing 
beauty, of wealth untold ; a city that will 
blossom like the rose. 

No ! Buffalo can never go back ! And neither 
can Depew ! And as Buffalo is a great city, 
just because it is a great manufacturing center, 
so Depew is great, just because it is the 
leading manufacturing suburb of Buffalo. 
I know Buffalo — I know every foot of its real 
estate. I know that if you buy property in 
Buffalo or its suburbs, you are sure to make 
money si>^ ^«^ 

I know that Buffalo property is today selling 
for less than one-third of its actual value, and 
I know that people are just waking up to this 
fact. If you can not make one hundred per 
cent profit in a short time by buying Buffalo 
property at today's prices, then I am no 
guesser &^ &^ 
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A LITTLE JOURNEY TO BUFFALO 



I make these statements only after comparing 
Buffalo prices with prices asked for similar 
property in Cleveland, Detroit, Toronto, or 
any other American or Canadian city about 
the same size. CLBut if Buffalo property is a 
good investment, then property in its greatest 
industrial suburb — DEPEW — is a specially 
good purchase. I can remember when Depew 
was given its name, when it was put on the 
map only a few years ago. <[Then it consisted 
of a railroad-station only. Today it has four 
trunk railroads and fifteen large manufactur- 
ing plants giving employment to nearly four 
thousand five hundred men. Cl^Its largest in- 
dustry, the immense plant ofthe Gould Coupler 
Co. , employs nearly two thousand four hundred 
men &^ &^ 

Within a few hundred yards of the Gould 
plant is a beautiful piece of land located 
partly within the town-limits and partly out- 
side. The street-cars run through the heart of 
the property. It already has electric light and 
natural gas, and some thirty nice residences 
have been erected on it to date. 
This property is known as the *' Buffalo 

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A LITTLE JOURNEY TO BUFFALO 

Industrial Annex/' <[ Every lot is high and 
dry, and an ideal building- site. 
Hundreds of Depew workmen are now living 
in the center of Buffalo. They should live 
nearer their place of work. But I understand 
it is next to impossible to secure a vacant 
house in Depew at the present time. 
Hence the wisdom in offering this beautiful 
residential property for sale. 
Every lot will be required for building pur- 
poses. For the artisan employed at Depew, 
ownership of a Buffalo Industrial Annex lot 
will enable him to build a home for his family 
and give him an opportunity to make a hand- 
some profit by the increase in value which is 
sure to come. 

For the investor who purchases one or more of 
these lots at present prices, a handsome 
profit is sure to accrue in reselling to the man 
who must purchase for building purposes 
later on. <LYes ! I am positive that all Buf- 
falo property is a good buy now, and I don't 
know of a better investment you can make 
than to pick up a few Buffalo Industrial Annex 
lots at present prices. 
16 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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id 014 220 748 5 i 




Buy Land, and buy 
it anywhere ^ •» ^ 

— James J. Hill 




Buy Land, but buy 
it somewhere ^ ^ 

— Henry T. McCord 







